46T 



ce, 10 Cents, to be had at all Booksellers and News-Dealers. 



f'<a 



m 



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FREMONT AND McCLELLAN, 



alitml anir JPiilitarg Camrs 



REVIEWED: 



Their Bikth, Euication, axd early Associations— Political Affinities — Fre- 
mont's Rocky Mountain Exploration-; — Conquest of California — Alleged 
" Insubordination " — McClellan at West Point — In the Mexican War — 
Their Relative Experience— McC'le plan's Secret Service in Cuba — His 
Promotion by Jrpp. Davis— Visit t^. the Crimea — His Book — Fremont's 
Presidential Campaign — McCi.ell.-, x's Proclamation— Fremont's Pro- 
clamation-^The Two Policies — McClellan General-in-Chief — 
Fremont's Missouri Campaign— McClellan's, Plans — His Advance 
on Manassas — PKXINSULAR CAMPAIGN — 1'orktown — Wil- 

LIAMSBURGH — SeVEN PiNES— ^MkS. LeE — StEWART'S RaID AND 

THE Bloody Seven Days — Cross Keys— Concluding Re- 
flections ON Strategy— "THE MAN FOR THE HOUR."' 



VAN BUREN D.ENSLOW. 



PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE SEMI-WEEKLY CLARION. 

1862. 



Ordei-s received at the Office of Wyukoop, Hallenbeck & Thomas, 113 Fultou Sheet. 



i 



Orvj-tr^. n 



a 



:-tsa>-^ 




aass_£Ak_l_ 

I 

Book , M'v D3^ 



■iipdL 



FREMONT AND McCLELLAN, 



ulitkal anltj P^ilitarg Camrs 



REVIEWED: 



Their Bikth, Education, and early Associations — Political Affinities — Fre- 
mont's EocEY Mountain Explorations — Conquest op California — Alleged 
"Insubordination" — McClellan at West Point — In the Mexican War — 
Their Eelative Experience — McClellan's Secret Service in Cuba— His 
Promotion by Jeff. Davis — Visit to the Crimea — His Book — Fremont's 
Presidential Campaign — ^McClellan's Proclamation — Fremont's Pro- 
clamation — The Two Policies — McClellan General-in-Chief — 
Fremont's Missouri Campaign — McClellan's Plans — His Advance 
ON Manassas — PENINSULAE CAMP AIGN — Yorktown — Wil- 

LIAMSBURGH — SeVEN PiNES — ^JIrS. LeE — StEWART'S EaID AND 

THE Bloody Seven Days — Cross Keys — Concluding Ee- 
FLECTIONS on STRATEGY— " THE MAN FOR THE HOUE." 



VAN BUREN DENSLOW, 



SECOND EDITION. 



PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE SEMI-WEEKLY CLARION. 

1862. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by 

JEEEMIAH BURNS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern 
District of New York. 



^ 3 i n I 



PREFACE. 



The following review was written as one of the series (No. 3) 
of "Crisis Papers" now publishing in the Semi-Weekly Clakion. 
After its appearance in that form, some of its readers, believ- 
ing that it deserved to be more widely disseminated, and do- 
siring to publish it in its present form, have done so, with 

the consent of 

THE AUTHOR. 



A REVIEW 

OF THB 

POLITICAL AND MILITARY CAREERS 

/ OF 

FEEMOJSTT AND McCLELLAJST. 



Upon the secondary actors in a drama, whether upon the mimic stage 
or upon the broad theatre of real life, public opinion is generally united. 
They pass on all sides for about what they are worth, as their lesser 
importance, by sparing them from criticism and partisanship, saves them 
from both friends and enemies. So in the reputations developed by this 
war ; there is little difference and no conflict as to the merits of Butler, 
Barnside, Anderson, McDowell, Pope, Curtis, "Wallace, Sigel, and the 
hosts of other brave and capable military men who have distinguished 
themselves and shed lustre on their country's arms by their achievements 
in responsible yet subordinate capacities. Fremont and McClellan, how- 
ever, enjoy no such undisputed honors. While a portion of the people of 
the country appear to regard Fremont as a military failure, and McOlellan 
as possessing wonderful military abilities, others are enthusiastic in their 
admiration of Fremont's entire career as a soldier, and fail to see the evi- 
dences that McOlellan is entitled to the favor which the Administration 
has shown him. "When we add to this, that those who are satisfied with 
Fremont are generally those who voted for Lincoln, while the admirers of 
McClellan are those who voted for Breckinridge, Douglas and Bell, it is 
apparent that this war of reputations is, to a degree, partisan, and it is 
also probable that the instinctive elective affinities of the people have dis- 
cerned in these men a fitness to be the leaders of their respective senti- 
ments, and that therefore this affinity for Fremont or McOlellan is based 
on deep-seated qualities in the men, which make them fit types of the two 
great political classes of the North. We propose to compare them, first 
politically, and secondly as soldiers. 

Fremont was born and reared with all the advantages which the son 
of a poor widow enjoys in South Carolina. McOlellan labored under all 
the early difficulties attending the child of a prosperous physician, in 
Philadelphia, Though poor — perhaps, because poor — ^Fremont educated 



4 

himself. Thongli rich, McClellan was educated by the nation. "Whatever 
military abilities are possessed by Fremont have cost the country nothing ; 
while it would be singular if McOlellan were destitute of military knowl- 
edge, since he was educated at West Point and sent to Europe, at the na- 
tional expense, to obtain it. Though born in the most aristocratic State of 
the slave South, Fremont early struck out for the free ITorth, and his ener- 
gy, prudence, associations, skill in business, and personal success and popu- 
larity are all Northern in their character. He has long stood, and stands 
to-day, the peculiar representative type of the party of Freedom, as 
opposed to the party of slavery-apologists in the North. Even his part in 
the Mexican war, which consisted in the conquest of California, did not in 
any way commit him as it did the more southern armies of Taylor and 
Scott, and their officers, to the business which constituted the main object 
of the war, viz. : extending human slavery, since slavery could not be 
extended to California. 

McClellan, on the other hand, though cradled in the city of Brotherly 
Love, has never professed to be anything else than Southern in his political 
principles upon the points which have been gradually dividing more and 
more the Forth from the South, from the days of Calhoun to the bombard- 
ment of Sumter. It is doubtless unimportant tliat the Southern press 
claim that McClellan, while at "West Point, conspicuously preferred the 
society of Southern cadets to that of the Northern " mudsills" in that insti- 
tution. Being a Northern student himself, it is highly improbable, wliat- 
ever his political views, that he would treat his own section of the country 
with a contempt so ostentatioiis as to have made it a memorable element in 
his character. True, his service as a lieutenant in command of sappers 
and miners, in the war upon Mexico — a war which was wholly Southern 
in its origin, intensely Southern in its aim, and mainly Southern in the 
officers conducting it — brought him again into association with such 
officers as Twiggs, Quitman, "Worth, Lee, Beauregard, Pillow, Davis, 
Johnston, and Magruder, thus cementing warm personal friendships be- 
tween him and them ; but this was but the natural effect of his position. 
The fact that all these were his seniors in age, rank and consideration in 
the service, naturally tended to draw him towards them by that elective 
affinity by which ambitious minds are ever drawn to their superiors, and 
since he was deservedly well received by them, it was but natural that 
mutual iniiuences should be exerted, tending to confidence upon their 
side, and to that regard for Southern men and Southern institutions 
upon his part which he has always consistently maintained, until it 
became necessary for him to choose between the preservation of such 
associations and a major-generalship in the service of his country. 
The claim of the Richmond papers, that he once, in correspondence with 
one who is now a distinguished rebel officer, expressed his sympathies 



with the South with a force which could he fairly consti*ued into a tender 
of his services to the Southern rebellion, should any attempt be made to 
coerce the South, is but a fair example of the ingratitude with which the 
rebels of the South regard their former friends. Did any such correspond- 
ence exist, the Punic faith which would reveal the fact would not scruple 
at publishing the letter. It is, however, a significant contrast that during 
the administration of Pierce, while the party of freedom were fixing their 
eyes upon Col. Fremont as their representative man and candidate for the 
highest office in the gift of the people, the pai'ty of slavery — then in 
power, with Jefferson Davis as Secretary of "War, and Pierre Soule (now 
in FoTt Warren) as Minister to Spain, and endeavoring to foment a war 
with Spain for the acquisition of Cuba to the (then) United States, and of 
course to the present " Confederate States'- — caused Lieutenant McClellan 
to be appointed by Mr. Jefferson Davis upon secret service in and about 
Cuba, having reference to such expected war, in which, as in that with 
Mexico, Northern blood should again flow to build up the Southern slave 
power. Indeed, Capt. McClellan was openly stated by the press, at the 
time, to have been one of the minor officers who, with Beauregard, Dun- 
can, Mansfield Lovell, G. "VF. Smith, and others now in the rebel army, 
were to command in Quitman's intended filUbustering expedition against 
Cuba, which was broken up by Secretary Marcy. And, for his compli- 
city with these movements for strengthening that slave power which is 
now the secession power, he was promoted from his brevet to a full 
captaincy by Jefferson Davis and sent to the Crimea. Fremont, however, 
has never been honored by the then secret and now open traitors to 
their country — nor, so far as we are aware, has he ever been used, 
under instructions or otherwise, to further the machinations of the cun- 
ning propagandists of human bondage and of its political power ; though 
the Southern people, and especially those of Charleston, testified, by 
the presentation of swords, &c., their high appreciation of his services as 
a soldier in the Mexican war, and their pride in the fact that he was born 
in the South. 

The first great attack upon the Sebastopol of slavery was made under 
the banner of Fremont. The battle-cry, "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Men, 
Fremont," rang throughout the continent, from the Alleghanies to the Cor- 
dilleras, from the snows to the tropics, with a thunderpeal that announced 
to friends and enemies that the defeat of Fremont was freedom's last defeat. 
The Forth retired from the polls to their homes confident of the victory 
of four years after. Enough of them, however, had voted with the South 
to elect an Administration prepared to co-operate with the latter, who, 
stung and goaded by the certainty of coming defeat, went to Washington 
and spent the next four years, aided by the whole power and vigor of the 
Government, in preparations for the work of overthrowing it. It is singu • 



]arly illustrative of the fact that a happier star presided over the obscurer 
destiny of McClellan, that while Col. Fremont was defeated by fraud for 
the Presidency of the United States, Lieut. McClellan was successful in 
obtaining the Vice Presidency and Superintendency of a "Western Eailroad. 

It is a part of his political history also, that upon the breaking out of the 
war, McClellan, on crossing the Ohio into Virginia, issued a proclamation, 
stating tliat should the slaves rebel (which they had not given the slight- 
est evidence of intending) he, McClellan, would crush them " with an 
ii'ou liand," while he instructed his troops in a general order to treat the 
white rebels kindly if they got them into their power, " because most of 
them were deluded." Here, then, was a platform growing out of McOlel- 
lan's political sentiments, of kindness to the rebels, whom he was sent to 
punish, and of iron-handedness to the slaves, with crushing whom, if 
they should rebel against the rebels, he and his troops had as much to do 
as with driving home their stray cattle — no more. Nay, it is not now to 
be doubted, that any general insurrection among the slaves at that time, 
while it would have been far less sanguinary than the scenes which have 
since occurred in our efforts to preserve the Union, would have spread 
such consternation among the rebels, and would have so divided and 
crippled their resources, as to have speedily insured the triumph of the 
Union cause. Nor has the expectation, that a pro-slavery course would 
develop a Union sentiment at the South, been realized in a degree sufficient 
to afford us any assistance in quelling the rebellion. Tlie most extensive 
insurrection, or the most thorough anti-slavery policj", could hardly have 
rendered the South more united than it has been. Fremont, on the other 
hand, believing that, as comnuander of his department, he had as much 
authority to free slaves as McClellan had to suppress their imaginary 
insurrections, and knowing that in this claim he had the precedent of the 
greatest of Eoman generals in ancient times, and of such generals as Jack- 
son, Taylor and Gaines, in our own country, declared-— what Congress 
has since enacted — the slaves of rebels free. By the last-named events, 
these two generals are politically to stand or fall. In the mere matter of 
place-holding, Fremont has already fallen, and McClellan has been sus- 
tained. But office-holding is not even Fame ; still less is it virtue or true 
greatness. The babbling of to-day's crowd may gratify greed, and be mis- 
named success, but true glory results only from sacrifices made in the cause 
wf freedom and humanity, not from the silver bought by their betrayal. 

Having reviewed the political considerations which influence tlie pop- 
ular judgment of Fremont and McClellan, let us candidly examine their 
respective military careers. Fremont received his first commission as 
Second Lieutenant of Engineers in the year 1838. lie immediately 
entered upon his daring and infinitely valuable explorations of the path- 
less regions of the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and the inter- 



lying basin — contributing to tbe scientific world more valuable information 
than probablj any living explorer, if we may except Humboldt, and 
entrancing the admirers of heroism and the lovers of romance in Europe 
and America with the dangers which he encountered, and the apparently 
insurmountable difliculties which he overcame. It was by tbis means, 
instead of idly place-hunting around Washington, that Fremont had 
passed successively through the grades of captain by brevet, captain, 
major, and lieutenant-colonel, which was his rank in 1846, when McOlel- 
lan entered the army from "West Point as second lieutenant of engineers, 
As showing the comparative degrees of military experience possessed by 
tlie present actors in this war, we may state that A. S. Johnston was then 
captain of dragoons, and Beauregard a lieutenant of engineers, so that 
Fremont then outranked all the present actors in this war, on either side, 
except Scott, Shields, Wool, and Twiggs, At the close of the Mexican 
war, McOlellan was even nearer to Fremont in rank than in reputa- 
tion. McOlellan had Avon creditable mention as a lieutenant of en- 
gineers, in at least two official dispatches of the general to whose 
division he had been assigned, and had been promoted to a brevet captain- 
cy, an average not brilliant good fortune. Fremont had, with 25 men, 
crossed the great mountains and deserts of America, amid untold hardships, 
yet with signal success, subsisting his horses on the bark of trees, and his 
men upon the flesh of horses — and had, with this force, recruited by a 
few Americans resident in California, while still unaware of the exist- 
ence of war with Mexico, hoisted the Bear Flag of Oalifornian independ- 
ence, prevented the British fleet from seizing this province, driven out 
tbe Mexican forces, and, when he learned of the existence of our war with 
Mexico, exchanged the Bear Flag for the Stars and Stripes, thus giving to 
his country, as a province, California, the land whose rivers ran over glis- 
tening sands of gold. This success, and his scientific explorations of the 
Ivocky Mountains, made him probably the most widely-known man of his 
age, not of royal birth, in the world. As a soldier, it was his good for- 
tune to win to his country a province whose untold wealth repaid the 
cost incurred by Taylor and Scott in conquering territory to be afterwards 
surrendered. As a man of science, he had received the praises of Hum- 
boldt, and, as a popular hero, the applause of the people. McOlellan, still 
unknown, might trace his aristocratic ancestry to the knights of Lochin- 
var, or search for their graves upon tbe bloody fields of Flodden, but the 
world instinctively bowed before the pedigree of Fremont as one of 
nature's royal family, whose reputation might be as storm-beaten, but 
would be found as pure and enduring as the snow-covered mountains 
among which his laurels had been gathered, and with which, by the mys- 
terious coincidences of Destiny, his very name was associated. 

Fremont's success in California attracted the envy of the red-tape West 
Pointists, to whose dullness his foresight was insubordination. Several 



8 

charges were made against him at the instigation of General Kearney, who 
had been sent to conquer California, but who unfortunately did not arrive 
until some time after Fremont had completed the work. The only charges, 
which were finally sustained, grew out of the fact that Fremont liad 
obtained, on behalf of the United States, an agreement, subject to the 
ratification of his Government, for the purchase, for $5,000, of an island 
commanding the harbor of San Francisco, which he foresaw the United 
States would need for military purposes, and which is, in fact, now 
occupied by a fort, the property of the United States. In this writing, 
he is styled Military Governor of California, in using which style his 
oflense of insubordination consisted. His defense was, that he had received 
a commission from Commodore Stockton, as Military Governor, and that 
Stockton and Kearney, being unable to settle between themselves the 
question of precedence, he, being compelled to obey one or the other, 
using his best judgment, had obeyed Stockton. This course, he had 
every reason to believe at the time, was assented to by Keai-ney, who 
cooperated with him as Military Governor, in a friendly manner, until 
after the return of both to the States, when the charge of insubordination 
was unexpectedly made against him, Pi-esident Polk ofiered him a pardon 
from the sentence of dismissal from the service passed by the court-martial, 
but Fremont, believing the finding and sentence utterly without foundation, 
refused the pardon and resigned. General Kearney, upon his death-bed, 
solicited and received the pardon of Fremont for the injury he had done 
him. The charge, nay, often the oflfense, of insubordination, being a frequent 
fact in the lives of the greatest military men, and occurring almost inva- 
riably wlien a far-seeing captain is called upon to saci'ifice the interests of 
his command or of his country to the caprice or ignorance of an official 
superior, allies him with such names as Ctesar, Bonaparte, "Wellington, 
"Wolfe, Jackson, and Scott, rather than furnishes evidence of military incom- 
petency. McClellan, also, resigned, owing, it is said, to the fact that his 
limited prospects in his profession as a soldier stood in the way of his mar- 
riage. Such were the relative positions of Fremont and McClellan at the 
bombardment of Sumter. McClellan, hitherto known as an ofiicer of an in- 
fluential corporation, upon whom, however, the nation had bestowed 
marked advantages of acquiring military knowledge, and who had, up to 
that hour, voted with the Soutli, and whose last vote was cast for Breck- 
inridge, the extreme Southern candidate, now a brigadier in the rebel army, 
in preference to both Lincoln and Douglas, two candidates from his own 
State of Illinois, would seem to have stood less chance of a prominent ap- 
pointment. Tlie supposed necessity, however, for uniting, by such means, 
all parties at the North, caused the first military appointments to be made 
almost exclusively from the anti-Eepublican parties, Patterson, whose 
house was mobbed in Philadelphia until he was compelled to raise the 



stars and stripes, was made, to the surprise of all wlio knew him, a gen- 
eral, and to his apathy and indifference, caused by his pro-Southern sym- 
pathies, we are indebted for our defeat at Bull Eun. Butler, who had 
seceded with the secessionists from the Charleston Convention, was com- 
missioned by his political opponent. Governor Andrew ; and though he has 
as yet done nothing as a strictly military man, yet, as a semi-military ad- 
ministrative officer, the country has an evidence that such selections from 
the former vehement fi-iends of the South may sometimes be as fortunate 
as the cases of Patterson, Stone, and others have proved disastrous. 
McClellan was commissioned, by Governor Dennison, of Ohio, a Major- 
General of Volunteers, and placed by tlie President in command of the 
Department of Ohio, comprising both banks of the Ohio River. Fremont 
was then in Europe, hastening his arrangements to return, in compliance 
with the invitation of his Government, and improving his time, means, and 
credit in purchases of arms aad miinitions of war, difficult to be obtained, 
and of which the nation stood in such need. Meanwhile, the press and 
public men of the country, of all parties, quietly assumed that his past 
services and experience eminently fitted him for a responsible command; 
but no word of pressure, solicitation, or dictation was imposed upon the 
President's judgment as to what that command should be. The President 
and Senate alone were responsible for any rank or command which might 
be given or denied to Fremont. All that military propriety required at 
that time was, that his rank should be equal to his former rank of Lieutenant- 
Colonel. Still it would have been a strange freak, alike impossible to the 
country and the President, to have overlooked the fact that his former rank 
and military experience w-ere superior to those of any Unionists, except 
Scott, Shields and Wool, all of whom had passed the prime of their vigor, 
and that, if in addition the Administration should consult civil prominence 
as a guide and test of military talent, as in the absence of purely military 
men it was compelled largely to do, certainly none could stand higher 
than the modest, but pure-famed, ex-Senator from California, who had 
been the unanimous first choice of that North to which Mr. Lincoln was 
alone indebted for his Presidency, and who, had he contended, like Mr. 
Lincoln, against a divided instead of a united Democracy, would doubtless 
have preceded him in the presidential chair. "Whatever data the President 
had, therefore, in his own position, as the head of the successful popular 
party, for estimating the popular confidence in his own civil abilities, 
applied equally to Fremont, without disparaging the effect of the ex- 
clusively military experience and reputation of the latter, advantages, for 
the crisis into which the country was then drifting, which the President 
had not enjoyed. 

Meanwhile, McClellan entered upon his command in "Western Vir- 
ginia, opening it with a proclamation which, though it failed to 
reclaim the rebels, won golden opinions from all other pro-slavery men. 



10 

While the party who, through a Repuhlican Governor and President, had 
given him his appointment, saw him transcend his province with surprise, 
perhaps with mortification, the President did not amend tlie proclama- 
tion, and the President's constituents acquiesced, supposing he intended 
to leave to his generals to deal with slavery according to their own 
judgments, MoOlellan was fortunate in the scene of his operations. 
Western Virginia had few slaves, and was therefore thoroughly loyal. 
But few rebel troops had been thrown into it, and those were commanded 
by inexperienced men, and vastly exceeded in numbers by McOlellan's 
force. The rebels never in a single instance voluntarily gave battle to 
McOlellan's subordinates; and, therefore, one report might have been 
made of them all, that — 

" When the flght became a chase, 
He won the fight who won the race. ' ' 

We say to McOlellan's subordinates, as it is not generally known that Oen. 
McClellan was not personally present, and that no forces under his imme- 
diate command actually tooTc part in any of the battles in Western Vir- 
ginia^ though the entire credit of being the commander of the department 
in which they were fought and the author of the official dispatches in 
which they were announced justly belongs to him alone, as the like 
credit relative to the department of the Mississippi and its battles belongs 
to Halleck. The first battle (Phillipi) was fought at that place (McOlellan 
being 24 miles distant, at Grafton) by Brigadier-General Morris and 
Colonels Kelly andDumont, our forces numbering over 3,000 — the enemy 
stated at 1,940. At Rich Mountain, General McOlellan, in command of 
10,000 men, designed to attack the enemy in front. It is difficult to 
arrive at the exact numbers of the enemy, but we do not find them stated 
higher than about 5,000. He sent General Rosecranz around to the 
enemy's rear, with 3,000, who, coming only upon a force of some 300, 
routed them ; the main rebel force, taking the alarm, quietly moved off 
during an interval of three hours, in which General McClellan stood 
waiting for official information from Rosecranz, so that McClellan was 
prevented by want of information from being actually engaged in this 
battle. The battle, or, rather, pursuit of Laurel Mountain and Cheat 
River, at which General Garnet was killed, was conducted by General 
Morris in person, assisted by Captain Benham (now General) and 
Colonel Dumont, without, it appears, the knowledge or orders of 
McClellan. At these engagements several thousand prisoners were taken 
by McOlellan's subordinates, who, if detained by him, would have saved 
our Bull Run prisoners from the horrors of a long captivity. The 
prisoners which Morris, Benham, Lander, Rosecranz, Dumont, and Kelly 
(several of whom were McOlellan's seniors in age and military experience) 
had captured, were all, in accordance with the policy announced in 



11 

McClellan's proclamation, of showing "mercy to the rebels when in our 
power, for many of them are misguided," released by General McOlellan, 
without interference from the President, upon taking the " oath of 
allegiance," and returned to the rebel ranks in time to aid in our 
defeat at Bull Run. The estimation in which this policy, which soon be- 
came the humiliation of the Administration and the nation, was held by 
McOlellan's officers and troops, is happily shown by the sarcasm of a 
captain in one of his Ohio regiments. The troops, in pursuing the rebels 
through the mountains, caught a rattlesnake, and, bringing it into camp, 
asked the captain what they should do with it. "Oh, swear it," he 
replied, "and let it go." 

The natural accompaniment of ignorance upon any particular subject 
is implicit faith in those who pretend to understand it. At the breaking 
out of the rebellion, both the people and the President, who had been 
chosen from among them, professed and felt utter ignorance of the 
theory and practice of war. When delegations called upon the Presi- 
dent to express their views relative to the novel questions that rapidly 
arose as the nation drifted into the vortex of war, his invariable answer 
was, " Gentlemen, I know nothing about military matters. I leave all 
these subjects to General Scott." We were astonished at the audacity of 
the youthful Southern pupils, who ventured a campaign against their old 
instructor, the hero of a hundred fights. Disappointment alone teaches 
us to "put not our trust in princes," and this disappointment came when 
the great soldier who had triumphed from Yera Cruz to Ohepultepec 
w^as defeated at Bull Eun. Though McDowell and his troops had 
fought far better than any general or troops in Western Virginia, the 
masses of the people, who judge according to success alone, and seldom 
regard the means used, looked away from the unsuccessful veteran Scott 
to the tyro in command of the Department in which the slender but 
only successes of the war had occurred. It was suddenly discovered that, 
as a junior member of a military commission of three United States 
officers sent by the Government to the Crimea, he had written a book 
which showed great military genius. It has never been our pleasure to meet 
with any person who has read this book, but all his admirers whom we 
have met are convinced that it proves its author to be capable of command- 
ing the entire Union army. True, the works of Major Delafield and Major 
Mordecai, his co-commissioners, though received with equal favor, and 
regarded as possessing equal ability at the time of their publication, were 
not supposed to entitle either of those very estimable but unknown gentle- 
men to the same exalted rank. They doubtless would, however, had 
either of those gentlemen received from so profound a seer of undeveloped 
military genius, as our State Governors usually are, the appointment of 
Major-General of Volunteers. This appointment Captain McClellan had 



12 

obtained from Governor Dennison, of Ohio, and Majors Delafield and 
Mordecai had not — an appointment, however, which made him the only 
Major-General (thougli of three months' volunteers), except Scott, then in 
the service; Wool being only Major-General in the United States army 
by brevet. So that the gratitude of McOlellan and the country is due in 
a greater degree to Governor Dennison of Ohio, than to all other sources 
combined for his military prominence in this war ; and though these facts 
may seem to make McOlellan's prominence the result of accidental good 
fortune in obtaining office rather than of any brilliant military achievements, 
still, when we consider how often great reputations are the ofisprings of 
accident, tliough more frequently of those occurring in the field than in the 
cabinet, we are not surprised if men occasionally win rank as courtiers, 
which they had not won as soldiers. No one supposes that, had McOlellan 
not resigned from the regular army, he would at this moment, without 
being under fire upon any battle-field, have risen to a higher rank than all 
his then senior officers. It is certainly a singular accidental working of 
our military system, that the very resignation from the army which lessened 
by some years his military experience, was necessary to his military pro- 
motion, and that his companions in arms, and seniors in rank, Sumner, 
Fremont, Heintzehnan, Porter, Eosecranz, Shields, Wool, Harney, Ander- 
son, and many others, shonld behold their Lieutenant of Sappers and 
Miners returning to them as Oommander-in-chief, by the magical effect of 
the cabinet counsels of an Ohio Governor. Both the people and the 
President, who so faithfully represents them, however, felt the need of 
some one in whose every qualification they could repose absolute confi- 
dence, and upon whom, in their avowed want of acquaintance with mili- 
tary affairs, they could lean with religious faith and simple trust, and the 
desire that McOlellan might be such an one was, with many, father to the 
faith that he was the most brilliant military man of the age. In the faith 
of the people and the President, therefore, as well as in his position, 
McOlellan succeeded to Scott. The masses, on his promotion to the general 
command, were as enthusiastic in praise of the late Lieutenant of Engineers, 
whose good fortune it had never been to lead more than a company into 
the field, as they had before been in admiration of the gray-haired con- 
queror in a score of fights ; nay, more, for the high praise never given to 
Scott of wearing as a name of honor, that of the terrible conqueror of 
Europe, was conferred by the people upon McOlellan, who was hailed as 
a second Napoleon, while yet innocent of his maiden skirmish. It was 
not displeasing to the people, therefore, that the President transferred to 
McOlellan the absolute supremacy over military matters, for which Scott 
deemed himself to be but imperfectly competent, owing to the many 
years he had already spent in the service of his country, a disqualifi- 
cation from which McOlellan was peculiarly free. Scott, whose mil- 
itary jealousies are historical, was satisfied, as McOlellan's previous 



13 

humble rank and services had not admitted of rivalry or difference between 
them. This would not have been the case had the choice fallen on "Wool, 
whom, shortly before Bull Eun, Scott stigmatized as an invalid, though 
his health has never interfered with the performance of any duties assigned 
to him, as did Scott's immediately after that battle ; or on Shields, who, 
though next to Scott and Wool in experience, being a fighting General, 
was voted rash a,nd no strategist, and with both of whom, as well as with 
most of the other prominent officers of the army, Scott had at some time 
quarreled. Fortunate, therefore, was the young general ia entering upon 
his office, so obscure as not to have gained the envy of Scott, and sa 
untried as not yet to have lost the good-natured confidence of the people,. 
and consequently of the President. Fortunate was he also in the scene 
of his operations. 

And here we take up again the comparison between him and Fremont, 
who was appointed at the same time to the command of the Western 
Department, his instructions a carte Manche, to do in all respects (we quote 
from recollection the language of the President) "what he deemed calcu- 
lated to promote" not merely the success of the army placed under his 
connnand, but " the interests of the people over wJiom he was set^ A 
viceroy could not have received a more unlimited authority. McClellan 
had the President, heads of Departments and Congress, at his elbow, 
before Avhom to lay his plans, whose suggestions he might receive and 
answer or adopt at pleasure. Fremont, removed from all these and 
obliged to select even his stalf and his officers after the first military 
talent had been absorbed by the army of the Potomac, was compelled to act 
promptly upon facts, which, if attempted to be communicated by telegraph, 
■would have been known to the whole country, and if by mail the delay 
would have been fatal. McOlellan, having Scott on his right hand, and 
the President at his left, the Secretary of War in front and of the Treasury 
behind, was responsible only for success. His defeats could easily be 
laid upon others. Fremont stood alone, responsible for success or defeat 
alike, except in the few instances in which his plans were frustrated at 
Washington. McClellan's enemy was concentrated at a single point — Man- 
assas. Fremont's foes were spread over thousands of miles of the States of 
Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Fremont, on reaching 
St. Louis, found himself in command of about 22,000 troops, the terms of 
service of most of which had already expired, who had received little or 
no pay or attention from the Government, which had been wholly occu- 
pied with the grand army at Washington, and who were necessarily 
scattered, by the exigencies of the service, over Missouri, Kansas, Illinois 
and Kentucky in independent bands, the adequacy of which, as a protec- 
tion from the enemy, may be inferred from the fact that St. Louis, though 
threatened by an army under Price, reported at 30,000 men, had but four 
regiments for its defense, while Cairo, similarly threatened by Johnson, 



14 

Buckner and Pillow, had a like inadequate force, Washington, though 
defended by a force exceeding that of the enemy, was sm-rounded by over 
thirty forts. Fremont caused three to be built for the defense of St. Louis. 
The amount of property at stake at St. Louis was many times that at 
Washington. Yet Fremont has been accused of unmilitary conduct in 
fortifying St. Louis. Fremont, knowing that every available regiment 
was required for fighting or drilling, had the digging done by contract, 
at a cost of $130,000, an entire cost which would not pay the expense of 
defending Washington from breakfast until dinner. Yet he has been 
accused of lavish expenditure in this item. The data are not in possession 
of the public for a calculation of the comparative expensiveness ot the 
Western and Eastern Departments at this period. We only know that, 
though Fremont was furnished with very little money, and at times with 
none, yet the total of claims against the Government, on account of and 
at the close of his three months' control of the Western Department, fell 
short of $10,000,000, a sum which would have paid the general war 
expenses of the Government, nearly all of which were incurred inMcClel- 
lan's department, for about four days. From West and East alike the flower 
of the national forces had hurried to Washington for the defense of the 
capital, and in expectation that the rebellion would receive its first and most 
vital assaults in Virginia, after driving the rebels from which McOlellan 
would proceed to crush the rebellion in the South and South-west. Little 
did the nation then dream that the few straggling regiments left to protect 
the West from invasion, and put down the Missouri guerrillas, would 
form the basis of the army, which, without the aid of a single Eastern 
regiment, would invade the Southern States, open the Mississippi, with 
the aid of Farragut's fleet, and strike the most ponderous blows at 
the rebellion. McClellan was in command of the grand array of the 
Union, in whose success we were interested and determined to believe. 
Fremont was in command of a distant and neglected department, where, 
though the difficulties of the commander's position were increased, it was 
thought he might be criticised or sacrificed without impairing the general 
faith in the Union arms, whose triumph was expected to be secured, not 
by the feeble army of tlie West, but by' the grand army of the Potomac. 

Fremont immediately set about organizing a gunboat fleet, and was ac- 
cused of visionary views of naval expeditions on the Mississippi and its tribu- 
taries. McClellan and the Navy Department at Washington were opposed 
to such chimeras. In vain the brave Ellet, who has since found a victorious 
grave, at his capture of Memphis, hurled his eloquent philippics at McOlel- 
lan and the Navy Department for their opposition torara fleets. Not until 
the " irregular opposition" of theMcrrimac to our wooden fleet at Fortress 
Monroe had sunk millions of property and sent in a moment hundreds of our 
brave sailors to a needless grave, did the lethargy of McOlellan and Welles 
give place to the strategy of Stanton, Footo, Davis and Ellett. McOlellan 



15 

boldly telegraphed to the commandant of a New London fort to get his 
ancient smooth-bore guns in order, to stop, with a distant volley of round 
shot, the passage into New York of a vessel from whose sides the heaviest 
solid shot from the Monitor, fired at a distance of fifty feet, fell harmless ; 
while Ellet, still unable to obtain a commission in the navy as captain, 
finally received from the innovating Stanton, spite of the adverse influence 
of the General whom he had criticised, a commission as Colonel of the ram 
fleet which captured Memphis and opened the Mississippi. McOlellan, after 
one of the most disastrous military movements in history, is preserved from 
utter annihilation by the very iron-clads which he opposed and despised, 
while the gunboat system, initiated under Fremont, has taught the world a 
new lesson in inland warfare, and has given to us the most brilliant suc- 
cesses which have yet crowned our arms in this contest. 

The Government was unable to provide Fremont with money or 
men. The enemy were near. Their spies were all around him. In 
the midst of actual weakness and poverty, there was but one safe 
course for him to pursue, viz. : to make the utmost display of wealth 
and strength consistent with real economy. The few regiments around 
St. Louis were magnified by every artifice to many times their real 
number. A relative of Fremont being the proprietor of one of the 
most elegant houses in St. Louis, the General gave the Government the 
benefit of its respectability without making it responsible for the rent, 
a pitiful item of twelve hundred dollars per annum, but which has been 
harped upon as a leading item in Fremont's extravagance. Fremont's 
carriage, which was in constant use as a hospital carriage for his sick 
soldiers, was drawn also by four horses, for the very democratic reason 
that two could not draw it through the boot-jack mud of Missouri. Alas, 
that the. very mud, which was McOlellan's standing excuse for not moving 
at all, could not justify Fremont in employing an extra team. This 
was characterized as too aristocratic for a republican general, though 
McOlellan, with foreign princes upon his stafi", and it was said fifty horses 
in his stall, might employ a special train and a specially decorated car 
with which to receive Mrs. McOlellan, and convey her from Baltimore to 
Washington, as an emperor would receive and convey his consort. Yet 
none saw aught in it but the dignity due to his office, 

Fremont had long been habituated to prominence and command. His 
face was as familiar in the squalid Indian's filthy hut as in the salons of 
the European noblesse; and, for the accomplishment of his assigned task, 
he could, with equal indifference, take part at a diplomatic dinner or dine 
upon roots and the flesh of unclean beasts, surrounded by hardy frontiers- 
men, whom sheer hunger had driven to insanity, and who, in the extrem- 
ity of their sufferings, plunged into the freezing mountain torrent in the 
crazed hallucination that they were bathing in tropical streams. That 
such a man, intensely matter-of-fact and practical as he was, should be 



16 

charged with descending to the assumption of barbaric display of equipages, 
&c., which only an ignorant oriental nabob would covet, furnishes another 
illustration of the fact that the defamer, in his stupidity, always invents 
those fictions which it would seem least possible that the world could 
believe, but which partisan enemies adopt with the fiery faith of Tertul- 
lian — Credo quia impossilile — and believe them because they are mar- 
velous. 

A few days aftfer Fremont took command of the "Western Department, 
and before it was possible for him to change the condition of Lyon's com- 
mand, the latter fought the battle of Springfield, under circumstances for 
which the prior commander of the department might perhaps have been 
responsible, but for which Fremont could not have been. That prior com- 
mander was George B. McOlellan. We prefer, however, to accept the judg- 
ment of the very best witness in the case, the heroic Lyon himself, who, in 
his letter written on the eve of the battle, very boldly and bluntly charged 
the responsibility of being " determined to cripple him, if he could," upon 
one whom he chose irreverently to designate as " old Scott." 

There was one occasion upon which the nation may wish, for Fremont's 
sake, he had acted differently. McClellan sat in his ofiice at Washington in 
command of 70,000 men, a s-urfeit of troops such as no general on this 
continent had ever led into an engagement. There was no attack to be 
made or met, but with the absoluteness of a newly-enthroned boy, he 
telegraphs to Fremont to send him five of his best regiments immediately. 
The dispatch finds Fremont about to send those very troops to the relief 
of the imperiled Mulligan. True, Sturgis and others have been ordered 
to his relief, but he would make assurance doubly sure. Fremont protests. 
The Administration reiterates the order, more and more peremptorily. 
Fremont ought to have disobeyed the oedek ; but he obeyed, sending 
the troops eastward, leaving but three thousand to defend St. Louis, and 
Mulligan was sacrificed. Yet this is the man who is charged with being 
naturally insubordinate. It may be in the power of McOlellan to explain 
as satisfiictorily the blunder of Ball's Bluff, the slaughter of Leesburg, 
and the sacrifice of the noble Baker, and especially his failure to obey the 
order of the President to advance on the 22d of February. If such an 
explanation exists, it has not yet gone into history. One point is proven. 
The strategy which compelled the surrender of Mulligan originated at 
Washington, and not at St. Louis. 

It would be in vain for us to attempt to do justice to Fremont's hun- 
dred days in Missouri. He found the State secession. He left it Union. 
He found the rebel forces threatening St. Louis. He was removed from 
the command at the moment when, by a series of rapid marches, pre- 
viously declared, by the Westpointists, physically impossible, and 
brilliant military combinations unequaled in this war, ho had driven the 



17^ 

rebel armies to the borders of Arkansas, and was there upon the eve of a 
battle which would doubtless (for Fremont has never yet been defeated, 
except by politicians) have thoroughly broken up the rebel campaign west 
of the Mississippi. Under Fremont, the rebels were driven one hundred 
miles further -than his subordinate, Hunter, thought it safe even to follow 
them. This was a singular reason for superseding Fremont by Hunter. 
Under Hunter the Union troops retreated, but under Halleck they again 
advanced over the same routes and in the same manner as under Fremont ; 
and many months after, and under less favorable circumstances, but still 
triumphantly, Fremont's chosen general, Sigel, fought out Fremont's 
intended battle at Pea Eidge, thus vindicating his policy and his strategy. 
It is known, moreover, that Fremont on the 8th September sent to "Wash- 
ington by a special messenger, lest, if sent by mail or telegraphed, it might 
become known to the country and ultimately to the rebels, the entire plan 
of that now famous campaign by our army and gunboats by the way of 
the Mississippi, Tennessee, Cumberland and White Elvers, which his ulti- 
mate successor, Halleck, adopted, and which Halleck's subordinates carried 
out in its details. But while Fremont, as a soldier, was putting forth his un- 
rivalled energy in Missouri, various influences were conspiring against him at 
Washington. Though of the regular United States army, and having filled 
more and higher grades therein than his rival on the Potomac, he had dared 
not only to be a soldier, but a thorough soldier, without asking leave of the 
West Point Academy for boys. His profession had been identical, and his 
experience similar, though superior, as an introduction to military life, to 
that of Washington, but there is hardly any probability that Washington 
would be considered adequate to any responsible command at. the present 
day, without first mingling with the boys at West Point, Would it do for a 
soldier educated at West Point to approve of the plan or policy of a 
soldier educated at all points ? Would it not at least show that the advan- 
tages he had enjoyed had failed in his case to confer superiority ? But 
Fremont's chief ofiense consisted in having spoken, " Feeedom to the 
Slaves of Eebels!" 

This would have been well enough, if he, according to the first rule of 
modern statesmanship, which consists in following, not in guiding the 
peojjle, had waited until the masses demanded it of him. Six months 
later. Congress and the President, in the Confiscation Bill, adopted his 
policy ; and the world of to-day is enthusiastic in praise of that statesman- 
ship which shuts its eyes to everything not yet pointed out by the 
slow-moving finger of the twenty millions. It will thus be seen that 
true wisdom is not in the astronomer applying his telescope to the 
heavens, and peering into worlds unseen by those below, but in 
the weather-cock on the top of his observatory, to which the crowd 
look to discover which way the wind blows. Again, although Fre- 
mont's vigorous anti-rebel policy was regarded by the ■ loyal North 



18 

with univei'sal approbation, the loyal North were not in rebellion 
against the Government, and were not likely to be, and therefore did not 
need to be conciliated. The border States were, and since the North 
would furnish men and money, no matter what the policy of the Govern- 
ment, and the border states would only furnish their pittance of either 
if the policy of the Government were pro-slavery, what more statesman- 
like than to let the border States rule the loyal North on this question. 
Fremont was removed from command in Missouri, at a time when 
McOlellan's influence was supreme in military aflPairs, in relation to which 
the President frequently and publicly expressed his entire ignorance. We 
make a deduction ; McOlellan is mainly responsible for the removal of 
Fremont from command of the Western Department. The petition from 
semi-rebellious Kentucky would have been powerless without the concur- 
rent influence of the General-in-Ohief. 

Until the advent of E. M. Stanton, McOlellan had the actual control, or, 
rather, prevention of all war movements, and not a single military success 
of value had been won by the Federal army. For reorganizing the army, 
after the defeat at Bull Run, great credit has been given him. It is 
poetical, perhaps, to say that he waved a "magic wand," but he did not, 
nor did he " create an army out of nothing." The task did not even 
require the highest order of military gifts, and could be performed by the 
mere di-illmaster and martinet. It consisted in giving the arms, with which 
Government had supplied him, to the soldiers whom the Government had 
enlisted for him, and teaching the latter how to handle the former, as the 
Government had taught him at West Point. The task could not be made 
a long one, and his army were in as good condition in October as they 
were in March. Nay, some of the regiments and brigades deteriorated 
sadly during the interval of inaction, at the close of which one of his 
brigades was characterized by an experienced soldier from Westei'n Vir- 
ginia, who was assigned to its command, as resembling pirates rather 
than soldiers. His reviews, frequent at first, were desisted from after a 
few months. Reconnoissances were rare, mock battles almost unknown, 
and the hope of real ones degenerated often into the peaceful desire that the 
objects of the war might be accomplished without them, until finally 
week after Aveek rolled around, in which McClellan did not even ride from 
his oflice in Washington across the Potomac to visit the camps, and when 
he did he was greeted with enthusiasm, not so much because he was so 
great a general, as because he was so great a stranger. With 200,000 men, 
he had for months permitted the rebels, with a force which no evidence 
shows ever to have been larger than from 70,000 to 100,000, to blockade the 
Potomac and besiege the capital. Under pretense that he was about) to 
make a movement, he prevented his troops from erecting winter quarters, 
but compelled them to hibernate in canvas tents, while the rebels lived in 
comfortable log-houses. His influence, like a palsy, restrained movements 



19 

everywhere. Halleck, Buell, and Mitchell, with 200,000 men, were pre- 
vented from attacking Bowling Green, which the suhsequent official 
report of Beauregard, and the private letter of A. S. Johnston to Jefferson 
Davis, written on the eve of the battle of Shiloh, show to have been 
defended by only from Y,000 to 15,000 rebels, and Columbus, which was 
doubtless defended by the same force which Pope met at Few Madrid and 
Island Fo. 10. McOlellan did not prevent the Merrimac from being com- 
pleted, but he most gallantly prevented a JSTorthern lady from singing 
popular Northern songs to the soldiers. For this distinguished and 
meritorious success, some conservative individuals, we believe, presented 
him with a sword. 

With the advent of Stanton, however, came vigor. Success de- 
pends not so much upon knowledge as upon those qualities which com- 
mand knowledge, and without which all knowledge is unavailing, viz.: 
character, energy, and will. These Stanton infused into the whole army, 
by the general order of the President to " go forward" on or before the 22d 
of February, which was secretly communicated to all the commanders. Then 
in brilliant succession followed, like meteors gleaming out upon the dark- 
ness, victory upon victory, in the departments which McOlellan did not con- 
trol. Rapidly as the running lightning could communicate the cheering 
intelligence to the country, came Mill Spring, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, 
Bowling Green, Columbus, New Madrid, Island No. 10, Nashville, 
Murfreesboro', Huntsville, Newbern, Fort Macon, Fort Pulaski, Forts 
Jackson and St. Philip, New Orleans, Pea Ridge, and Pittsburgh Landing. 
Lo ! the centre of the rebellion was broken ; the war almost decided in 
our favor by the generals in other departments. McOlellan, meanwhile, 
was proving himself a second Napoleon only in the number of men under 
his command, which now stood at the enormous figure of 230,000. His 
force exceeded all the forces combined which had won the thirty Union 
victories in other departments, had been longer in the service, was more 
thoroughly equipped, yet, with the exception of the slaughter of Ball's 
Bluff and the unintentional but successful skirmish at Drainsville, he 
had made no strategic movements except upon the Treasury. Not even 
had he by armed reconnoissances ascertained the enemy's true force, 
or whether his guns were of brass or wood. Naturally, where all was 
ignorance, all was exaggeration. We state, without fear of contra- 
diction, that never before in history had a force one-fifth as large been 
under the command of a general who never had led a regiment into battle. 
Though the enemy opposed to him numbered but a third of his own huge 
and unwieldy command ; though an armed reconnoissance would have 
shown at any time that the enemy's apparently most powerful batteries 
were of wooden guns; though the ablest rebel generals — A. S. Johnston 
and Beauregard — had left the indolence of opposing McClellan at Manassas 



20 

to such calibre as ex-Street Commissioner G. "W. Smith, while they found 
more fitting scope for their abilities in endeavoring to stay the headlong 
progress of Grant, McOlernand, Wallace, Sigel, Pope, and Mitchell at the 
"West; though, finally, the President's order for an advance was peremp- 
tory, the day passed, and the order stood disobeyed. McOlellan was not 
ready, and opposed any advance prior to the 15th of April, by which 
time the heats of summer would have set in, and a further postponement 
till fall would have been inevitable, accompanied by a still further decline 
in Government credit, and a recognition of the independence of the 
Southern Confederacy in Europe. Upon the question of this disastrous 
policy, a council of his twelve division generals was called. Eight of the 
twelve (seven of whom had been appointed at McOlellan's request) voted 
for McClellan's inaction. Four, the most experienced officers in the 
service, all of whom were McOlellan's seniors in age, service, and 
experience, voted for an advance. The President, then, overruling 
McClellan's counsel, ordered the army divided into four corps Warmee^ each 
under command of one of the four belligerent generals, the whole to remain 
under the command of the pacific McOlellan, to whom remained the alter- 
native of advancing against his judgment or resigning. McOlellan advanced 
under protest, on the 10th of March, upon the smoking ruins of the winter 
quarters, in which a rebel force, one-third to one-sixth his own in number, 
had quietly spent the winter upon a plain destitute of natural strength, 
heavy entrenchments, or artillery. Never did the American arms, 
except in the surrender of Hull to the British, or of Twiggs to the rebels, 
suffer so great a humiliation, as when the advance on Manassas showed 
what 60,000 rebels had during a long winter achieved against 230,000 
Federal troops. It is difficult in the light of the facts which the advance 
revealed to conjecture upon what possible views McOlellan could have 
feared a defeat. Interested or biased contemporaries may urge want of 
time for preparation, but the plea contains its own refutation, for time 
passed at the same rate over McOlellan as over the rebel generals, his 
assistance and" resources at all times quadrupled theirs, and there was no 
reason why he should not have been more ready than they. Impartial 
history will regard the second advance upon Manassas as so inglorious 
in its long delay as to be only less humiliating to the Federal arms than 
the first. 

The President felt the humiliation of this left-handed and barren suc- 
cess, and, in honest vindication of his own course, published his order for 
a general advance, made two months earlier, and also two further orders, 
one limiting McOlellan openly, as he had for a brief period before been 
practically, to the army of the Potomac, and one restoring Fremont to 
command, placing Ilalleck, Fremont, and McOlellan, upon a level as 
commanders of the three departments. 



21 

The order and sequence of these events are significant, as showing, 
first, that the utmost efforts of the pro-slavery, "West Point, and red- 
tape enemies of Fremont had been unable to make good their hue-and- 
cry, by any proofs tending to tarnish his fair fame for incorruptibility, 
energy, and military capacity; secondly, that the moment McOlellan 
ceased to advise and commenced to act, the cloud passed away from before 
the star of Fremont, and finally that McOlellan, though still untested as 
to his capacity to command upon the field, was proven to be no longer 
the fit person to control the military counsels of the Government, 

Again the Government ordered McOlellan forward, this time to Eich- 
mond. Then was one of McOlellan's golden opportunities. By the evacu- 
ation of Manassas, he had become acquainted with the exact force of the 
rebels. They, accustomed to and expecting a continuation of McOlellan's 
masterly inactivity, would have been taken as much by surprise by a sud- 
den display of energy in him, as by a strategical movement by another. 
Had he then, in compliance with the policy of Stanton, marched upon 
Richmond, by the direction of Manassas and the healthy valley of 
the Shenandoah, keeping his whole array united, and covering always his 
base of operations, is it within the range of possibility, that that army of 
230,000 marching to Eichmond in a week could have been beaten by the 
60,000 rebel troops, who withdrew from Manassas? The terms of service 
of the rebel troops were rapidly expiring, they were discouraged by their 
constant ^Western defeats, and their conscriptions had not yet filled up 
their ranks. Even under these circumstances, McOlellan reluctantly and 
against his own judgment, but according to his own plan, advanced. We do 
not believe that history justifies any government in entrusting to a comman- 
der the execution of projects which he disapproves. If his army prevails, 
his judgment is overthrown. If his judgment is vindicated, his army is over- 
thrown. The issue will leave him in the inevitable dilemma of being either 
unsuccessful or injudicious. After two weeks of vacillation had enabled 
the rebels to perfect their retreat to Eichmond, McOlellan's novel and 
startling plan was announced, being the abandonment of the direct route, 
via Manassas, which he had been content to pursue as long as it was 
obstructed by the enemy, for a march upon Eichmond via Yorktown. 
This policy the President and Secretary of "War disapproved, upon views 
now proved to have been wise, notwithstanding the sanguine assurance 
of McOlellan, that, taking this route, he needed but 120,000 men to cap- 
ture Eichmond — thus proposing to leave in the extended department of 
the Potomac and the Shenandoah, and for "Western Virginia, in all, 110,000 
men, including McDowell's corps. The President at last deferred, upon 
the maxim that " the general who is to fight a battle has the right to plan 
it." It is claimed, however, by some of McOlellan's adherents, that by 
his plan, McDowell's corps should have been sent to him in addition. 



22 

instead of remaining to protect AVasMngton, and advance by way of 
Fredericksburg. If this were his original plan, which it was not, the 
raid of Stonewall Jackson to Harper's Ferry, with 30,000 men, at a time 
when Washington was defended by a much smaller number, shows that, 
had the defending force been further depleted, according to McClellan's 
wish, by the withdrawal of the remainder of McDowell's corps — part of 
whom were actually sent to him — the rebels could have captured Wash- 
ington without difficulty. 

161,000 men in all were sent to McOlellan on the Peninsula for the 
capture of Richmond, of whom over 120,000 accompanied him, and the 
remainder followed as re-enforcements. When he landed at Fortress 
Monroe, the enemy at Yorktown numbered 7,000 men, with a reserve of 
50,000, at most, at Richmond. 

Time and space do not permit us to trace the various phases of the 
campaign on the Peninsula — the cabinet council in which the plan was 
unanimously condemned, but spite of which the will of the self- 
confident young general prevailed — the transportation of his original force 
of 123,000 men to Fortress Monroe, at an expense of $50,000,000, and at 
the risk of destruction by the then all-powei-ful Merrimac, to the unfore- 
seen poltroonery of whose new officers he was indebted for the safety of 
the grand army — the oppressive and ostentatious secrecy by wliich his 
movements were veiled from the North, while the entire South, by his 
weeks of delay at Fortress Monroe before advancing on Yorktown, was 
made fully aware of his plans and numbers ere he had prepared for action 
— his refusal to capture Yorktown while it yet contained but 7,000 troops, 
though such policy was urged by officers who had grown gray in the 
service before he had entered it. Arrived at Yorktown, he found entrench- 
ments, stopped and telegraphed to the President a glowing account of 
their tremendous strength. It is exceedingly embarrassing to a brave 
commander to have a timid judgment. His heart may pant with the 
desire, and his eagle eye may flash at the prospect, of driving the enemy 
to the wall ; yet, if his genius supplies him only with a keen appreciation 
of the obstacles in his way, and with a contemptible estimate of his means 
of overcoming them, while his heart may be brave as a lion's, his history 
will be meek as a lamb's. Better the ignorance of such men as Farragut 
and Porter, which supposes that wooden vessels can smash through iron- 
clads and stone forts, than the discernment which sees no strength except 
in the enemy. The Secretary of AVar replied to McOlellan's dispatch by 
ordering him to move on to the enemy's works immediately, and take 
them ; but, instead of obeying, he began throwing up defensive entrench- 
ments to protect the 120,000 men under him from the garrison before 
him. Had he marched to fight the enemy, Napoleon-like, as soon as he could 
have got at them, and stormed every intrenchmeut as soon as he came to 



23 

it, success, considering the disparity of numbers, would have been inevita- 
ble, the loss of life, treasure, and time would have been infinitely reduced : 
the rebel re-enforcements, if such there were, for Richmond could not 
have arrived, and Elchmond would speedily have been taken, which, 
with the "Western campaign, would have crushed the Rebellion, and re- 
stored peace to our unhappy country. 

Instead of this, there follows the month of siege with no attempt to 
prevent the re-enforcement of the enemy, or to intercept his retreat, termi- 
nating in an evacuation, against which, as a failure, the country had been 
guaranteed, but which, having occurred, was trumpeted as a victory — then 
the battle of "West Point, at which, as at the battles of "Western "Virginia, 
JkfcOlellan was not present, and of "Williamsburgh, fought also while 
McClejlan was still at Yorktown, the popular prints of which, however, 
represent the second ISTapoleon mounted on a fiery black charger at the 
head of his troops, within a few yards of the bayonets of the enemy — 
McOlellan's remarkable dispatches, in which he for some mysterious reason 
gives the credit of this battle to Hancock, though, spite of the suppression 
of the official reports, the whole country knows that it was fought by 
Hooker — and his astoundingly pusillanimous official dispatch, " My entire 
force is considerably inferior to that of the rebels, who will fight well, 
but I will do all I can with the force at my disposal," when all that he 
could have known was, that the portion of his forces actually engaged, 
which was not a fifth of his entire force, was outnumbered, and when the 
whole country knew that his force was twice that of the enemy. In rela- 
tion to this battle, Hooker says : " History will not be believed when 
it tells that the devoted officers and men of my division were permitted to 
carry on their unequal struggle, from morning until night, unaided, in the 
presence of more than 30,000 of their comrades, with arms in their hands ; 
nevertheless it is true." And the country asks why was it true, not only 
here, but all through the Peninsular battles, that some single division 
fought against overwhelming numbers, while the capacity of the com- 
mander failed to bring the great body of the army into action, thus show- 
ing that the army, whatever was its ratio to the enemy, was too large 
for its general? ITor can we dwell upon the leisurely retreat of the rebels 
to Richmond, their leaders being at once too humane and too shrewd to 
develop their strategy in the swamps of the Ohickahominy, Still less heart 
have we for contemplating the ghastly spectacle of 35,000 men prostrated 
by the fevers of the swamps and trenches, without being permitted to 
strike a blow for their country, and led, not against rebels in arms, but 
against malaria, against typhoid, against the invisible darts of Death him- 
self. "We gi'ow sick at heart when we think that while the dying saviors of 
our country were lifted at the rate of a regiment a day delirious from the 
trenches, their pitying comrades were compelled to guard the deserted 
and empty dwellings of rebels from being used as hospitals for the reno- 



24 

vation and cuve of their raving brothers in arms, to stand sentinel over 
the springs of rebel water, and the shade of rebel trees, lest a Union soldier 
might receive with weeping gratitude their cool refreshment ; thus com- 
pelling the sick and dying youth, to v?hom at their homes fond mothers 
and sisters would have brought the cool waters of the mountain springs 
of Maine or of Minnesota, to drink in death from the black and muddy 
waves of the sluggish Pamunkey. And yet, while amidst the malarious 
seclusion of the peninsular jungles all this vast untold tragedy of ten 
thousand scenes was being enacted, every one of which would have 
melted in one common river of tears the homes and hamlets of the North, 
and none of which were the effects of battle, or legitimate consequences 
of war, the free and easy, hail-fellow-well-met, and therefore popular 
young general, who had never fought a battle nor won a victory, lays 
down his cigar, takes up his pen and writes, for the country to 
read, that "all things are progressing satisfactorily, in accordance 
with his plans and wishes;" and the weeping and stricken country, with 
an effort to peer dimly through the darkness and see in all this disaster 
that mysterious phantom " strategy," takes back for burial the emaciated 
forms of the sons whom, hale and stout, she had laid upon her altar, and 
looks, still through her tears, with a marvelous constancy to the general she 
has idolized for the full fruition of her faith. That army, which McOlel- 
lan had telegraphed was greatly outnumbered by that of the enemy, he 
extended before Eichmond in the face of that enemy, until it was twenty 
miles from wing to wing, and exceedingly difficult for one portion of it to 
re-enforce another, when, as if still further to weaken it, he threw a small 
portion of his army across to the right bank of the Chickahominy {a Z« Ball's 
Bluff). History will record with tears that Casey's division of raw and 
newly-levied troops, which had hardly yet been taught more than how 
to camp and how to march — thus indiscreetly isolated, against the wi'itten 
protest of General Keyes, and placed within the enemy's power by the 
commander-in-chief— -after a brilliant fight, in which 4,600 men kept 
back 40,000 for twenty -four hours, was at last annihilated, not so much 
by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, as by the merciless asper- 
sions of the cibsent commander-in-chief, which were retracted by him too 
late to repair the injury done to an aged and gallant general, a brave 
division and a suffering country. 

The generals engaged deemed it of the utmost importance to press up 
the ultimate rout of the rebel forces at Seven Pines by an immediate 
march on Richmond. McOlellan overruled this policy. It subsequently 
appeared tliat tlie rebel army fled to Richmond in a panic equaling our 
own at Bull Run, and that, had the policy of his subordinates been pur- 
sued, McOlellan's army would have marched into Richmond almost with- 
out resistance. McOlellan was now anchored in the midst of the Chicka- 
hominy swamps. From this position he telegraphed to Washington that 



25 

his forces were ample, and that he would be in Richmond within two 
days, though the two days passed in the usual quiet. His front was seven 
miles from Richmond; his rear a considerable distance forward from 
White House Landing — his base of operations. Here immense quan- 
tities of military stores were being collected, as rapidly as the means 
of transportation would permit, and were piled up over acres of area 
without a sentinel, much less a protecting force, though fifteen Union 
soldiers stood guard over the residence and grounds of McClellan's 
former friend. General Lee, in the vicinity. Lest the rebels might 
in some way fail to get information of this state of facts, the gallant 
young general causes Mrs. Lee — who was fully acquainted with them 
— to be passed from the vicinity of the "White House through our 
lines to Richmond, with a pomp and ceremony such as might have 
honored the queen of an allied country, rather than the distrust which 
might have protected our country against the lynx eyes of a female rebel 
and spy. On the day following^ General Lee sent a cavalry force under 
Stewart, which passed around McClellan's right flank and across his rear, 
going over the very road over which Mrs. Lee had been taken, slaugh- 
tered our unarmed sick soldiers upon the train at Tunstall's Station, 
sabreing such wounded soldiers as they came across, destroyed the track 
and bridges of the railroad which formed McClellan's means of communi- 
cation with his base of operations, collected the information which led to 
the great seven days' conflict, and returned unharmed around McClellan's 
left wing to Richmond, thus making the entire circuit of our forces, and 
accomplishing a reconnoissance, one of the most singular in history, as the 
opportunity presented to it by McClellan was one of the most rare and 
remarkable. "What an exceedingly ungentle return was this on the part of 
Mrs. Lee for the gallantry with which our confiding general had not only 
enabled her to become possessed of the information which caused this raid, 
but to communicate it to the enemy. Had our General himself, in confidential 
correspondence with General Lee, disclosed important weaknesses in his 
own position, it would hardly have been more ungenerous for the rebels 
to have made use of the disclosure. Such treachery was certainly not to 
have been expected from high-toned and chivalrous rebels. 

It would seem probable that this raid might have suggested to McClellan 
that his base of operations, "White House Landing, was too distant, and that 
a nearer, safer, and healthier one could be found on the James River. The 
enemy were not yet prepared to attack him while making the change, as 
a large corps of their force was with Jackson in the Valley of the She- 
nandoah. That no such idea of changing his base of operations was sug- 
gested, however, is shown by the fact that, instead of sending a recon- 
noissance to the James River, he sent his engineers to relay the track of 
the Richmond and York River Railroad, and rebuild its bridges, and 
ordered up from Fortress Monroe still farther stores, siege guns, shot and 



26 

shell, not by way of the James, but via the York Eiver, and which 
could not reach him until the railroad should be repaired. Nor did he 
remove his sick and wounded to the James River, but left them where, 
in the hnal "change of base," they fell into the hands of the enemy. 
Then came mysterious movements of the rebels in large force. Did 
McOIellan consolidate his army, as if expecting to make or meet an 
attack ? No ! still the immense area from wing to wing widens, and again, 
as we are informed, he telegraphed that his forces were ample — thanking 
the President, &c., and promising to be in Eichmond within two days, 
though he made no movement, and though, as he now tells us, his army had 
been diminished, by death, sickness, and furloughs, to one-half its com- 
plement at Yorktown, and was largely exceeded by that of the enemy. 
At last — though Napoleon never allowed himself to be attacked, and 
though it is a familiar experience of the soldier that raw troops 
making an attack are equal to veterans receiving it — the blow was 
struck, not by McOIellan, who never attacks, but by the rebels. Upon 
the disastrous seven days, Avhich ended by stranding the grand army 
of the Potomac on the James River, there to be saved from annihilation 
by our gunboats, we have no official reports, but a few general fiicts are 
plain, from the undisputed testimony of the entire correspondence of 
those officers and men wlio bravely stood, uncheered by the personal 
presence of their Commander-in-Chief, where whizzing shot and scream- 
ing shell baptized them in the fires of battle : 

First. The strategic story that McOIellan contemplated a change in 
his base of operations is proven to be simply false, inasmuch as he had 
neither shown by his acts, nor communicated to his officers any such in- 
tended change until Jackson, pressing close upon McOlellan's right wing, 
when the same was withdrawn by the latter, had placed himself 
between McOIellan and his former base of operations, so that no other 
line of retreat was open, except to the James River. It certainly is not 
a strategic change of base, but a eetkeat, for a general to remove his army 
as far away from the enemy as possible, by the only route which they 
have left possible. 

Secondly. That during the first, second and tliird days' battles, which 
ended in this retreat, the entire conllict was sustained by one or two divi- 
sions, after the model of Bull Run, Ball's Blufl: and "Williamsburgh, while 
the rest were idle, and that McOIellan, therefore, either thought it unne- 
cessary to bring his whole army into action, or else lacked the generalship 
to do it. By this we do not mean to imply that, after the retreat liad 
fairly begun, the whole of our army might not have been attacked and 
engaged, but this 'was the strategy of tlie rebels, not of McOIellan. 

Thirdly. That, while in each of the fights but a small portion of our 
force was engaged, so far as we know, in each of them the entire available 
force of the rebels was in action. 



FowtTdy. That, since the commaoder could only judge of the numbers 
of the enemy by the vigor of their fighting, McOlellan had no means of 
knowing that, had he on the first two days of the battle brought his entire 
force into action, he would not have outnumbered the rebels ; in short, the 
country has no evidence that McOlellan was outnumbered, and that the 
stories that he was outnumbered rest on the same foundation as the similar 
fictions relative to our forces at Bull ETun and Ball's Bluff, which we now 
know to have been untrue. The absence of evidence that he was outnum- 
bered becomes necessarily the evidence that he was outgeneraled, and 
this, too, not by any unequaled or remarkable generalship on the part of the 
rebels, but by a mere average common sense generalship, to which that of 
the more experienced commanders of McClellau's corps Warmee would 
have risen superior, had their counsels prevailed. 

Fifthly. That, notwithstanding the particular forces engaged on our 
jjart were outnumbered, they were in no single instance beaten or driven, 
and that every time they retreated it was in consequence, not of the 
strength of the enemy, but of the orders of McClellan, and that in each 
case, when ordered to retreat, the division generals, who really conducted 
all the fighting, expressed themselves able and anxious to hold their 
ground, thus presenting the military anomaly of a series of battles, in each 
of which we were successful, but in the aggregate of which we were 
defeated. 

We state the above conclusions as being facts established in the minds 
of the entire North. We state as further conclusions, which we be- 
lieve will yet be demonstrated equally to the satisfaction of the world, 
that every retreat that McOlellan ordered was unmilitary and unjustifiable ; 
that every time he said retreat he ought to have said advance ; that after 
the divisions composing his right wing had, under the able, heroic and ex- 
perienced Fitz John Porter, not only held their ground unflinchingly in the 
absence of the re-enforcements which he had demanded, w'hich were at 
hand, but which McOlellan failed to send him, but had actually thrice re- 
pulsed the enemy, and finally driven him one mile within the line of his 
camps, the order of McOlellan coming then to these victorious divisions, re- 
quiring them to do what the enemy had in vain for twelve hours striven to 
compel them to do, viz., to fall back to the rear of his left, and thus initiate a 
general retreat, was in itself equivalent to a rebel victory ; that no division 
of McOlellan's army had been whipped by fighting at the time he compelled 
them all to retreat, and that the army which retreats under such circum- 
stances is defeated, not by the enemy, but by its general ; that the deser- 
tion of his intrenchments before Eichraond wasa defeat; that the abandon- 
ment of the immense military stores at White House, without destroying 
them, constituted a disaster ; the retreat over the bridges of the Ohickahom- 
iny river, without destroying them, was a blunder, and the abandonment of 
all his sick and wounded to the enemy constitute when taken in con- 



28 

nection with the foregoing facts, a deep culmination of disgrace to the 
Union arms, which indeed has mystified and confounded the North, 
shaken for the time our confidence in our Government and in our military 
leaders, but which, for that very reason, should be searchingly investi- 
gated and fully understood, that the remedy may be promptly applied. 
Nothing is so simple as to apply the remedy, where the difficulty is 
known; nothing so impossible as' to do right where the facts are con- 
cealed. McOlellan's admirers, to cap the climax of deceptive audacity, 
may state that the advantage gained by the change of position is worth far 
more than it cost ; but the country is wholly unable to understand the 
strategy by which an overwhelming invading army is so placed by its 
general that it is richly worth the loss of half the army to save the other 
half. Nay, if the country have not been altogether deceived, the salva- 
tion of the remaining half of the army is due to-day to the President and 
General "Wool. The latter, for months, in vain besought McClellan for a 
few thousand troops with which to capture Norfolk and Portsmouth. The 
President, on his personal visit to Fortress Monroe, by one of those inter- 
ferences with McClellan's plans, to which the country is indebted for the 
measure of safety which has attended the operations of the Eastern De- 
partment, placed the men at his disposal. Portsmouth and Norfolk were 
taken, the Merrimac destroyed, and the James River thus opened to our 
gunboats. "Wool has since been removed from Fortress Monroe to Balti- 
more ; but to his policy, in opposition to that of McClellan, the latter 
was indebted for his ability to retreat to the James River, there to be 
protected by our gunboats, instead of being assailed by the Merrimac. 
If such be strategy, what is incompetency? If this be victory, what, in the 
name of the God of Battles, is disaster? And who is General McClellan, 
that any portion of the people should have an interest in sending their brave 
sons to disaster and the grave under his leadership, rather than to victory 
under the banners of other generals ? "Who, that the country should, in 
that acme of faith to which religious devotees can hardly rise in their wor- 
ship, still ceaselessly chant, " Though thou slay me, yet will I trust in 
thee." 

It is no answer to these facts, to ask why he is so popular with 
his army. His popularity with the army is very largely a past event, not 
a present fact. So long as its general lingered idly about "Washington, they 
could see only one point in his character, viz., his manners, which are said 
to be easy, nonchalant, aff'able, abandon and negligee, especially towards 
the common soldier. He assumes no airs of greatness, as well he may, 
if he possesses none of its qualities, but puts himself on a level with his 
men. These qualities are excellent in a general, and sufficient to seciire 
their affection, so long as he does nothing betraying the want of more 
important ones. Better were it for his fame, as a general, however, had 
he put himself upon a level with his men upon the battle-field, especially 



29 

during tlie bloody seven days, instead of having it written of him, even 
by his flattering parasites, that " he remained at his headquarters all day, 

looking glum as ." Did McClellan appear on the bridges of the 

Ohickahominy, like Napoleon at the bridge of Lodi ? Negligee and 
abandon may be exceedingly charming qualities in a general in private 
life, and seemingly, but not necessarily, inconsistent vk^ith judgment, cau- 
tion and prudence ; but let them not upon the field develop into a non- 
chalant exposure of the lives of his men to no purpose — into a neglect of 
all the ordinary precautions in protecting his base, his stores, and his sick 
and wounded, and, finally, into an abandonment of them all to the enemy 
— while he, outstripping his army in a hard-fought retreat, watches with 
a spy-glass, from a secure position in the rigging of a gunboat, to see 
whether his army shall come up with him or be cut oflf in the swamps by 
the enemy, while the information which enables a large body of that army 
to avoid an intercepting force of the enemy, and directs them to their 
present location on the James Eiver, comes, not from their general, but 
from a negro, whom his politico-military policy has forbidden to come 
within his lines. 

There are many other facts which deserve to be carefully and candidly 
collated and fully brought out relative to this disastrous Peninsular cam- 
paign, which daily will loom up more and more disastrously as its facts 
become stripped of the gloss with which it is the interest of some to con- 
ceal them. We leave them without comment. 

"We have no epithets — we have only sorrow for the reverses of those to 
whom the country entrusts the power to serve her cause and promote her 
glory. ISTor is it so much the fault as the misfortune of McClellan that he 
has failed to be what a portion of the people, without any word or act on his 
part to justify the expectation, insisted upon mistaking him for, viz., an 
able man and a great general. "We only trust that the people will take 
to themselves their full share of the blame for the giddy elevation to 
which they have raised him, and that their ultimate construction of his 
conduct will be as charitable as that of those who have felt it to be a duty 
which they owed to the country, to speak with bold, sad kindness and 
truthful criticism of his career. "We have briefly touched upon the salient 
points in the contrasting careers of these two widely different men. Con- 
densing them all into their logical sum and conclusion, they prove, that 
while Fremont, owing to his identification with those political views which 
this Administration was elected to carry out, and in consequence of the 
adoption by him of a war policy, as to slavery, which the Administration 
and country have since adopted, and for no other reason, was removed, 
yet that his plans, both political and military, have all eventually been 
agreed to and put in practice ; and though, doubtless, less perfectly than 
they would have been by their originator, have been crowned with inva- 
riable success. "While, on the other hand, McOlellan's political policy, in 



30 

reference to the rebels and their property, has been abandoned as impolitic, 
and his military plans, though he has had the unimpeded opportunity of 
carrying them out with the aid of unlimited means, bave never commend- 
ed themselves to the judgment of those who have been called to pass 
upon them, have resulted in such monstrous failures, and have so played 
away our immense resources against such comparatively small obstacles, 
and yet lost, that the reflection upon them inevitably involves the minds 
of very many in thoughts which cannot be uttered. For ourselves, if this 
rebellion could possibly be put down by conciliatory means, we be- 
lieve General McOlellan qualified to command our armies, if, indeed, 
any armies would be necessaiy. "We believe that those who have 
adhered to him in a partisan spirit are those who believe that the 
rebellion is to be put down by some other mode than fighting. We 
have conversed with his soldiers, and we know that the basis of much of 
their former confidence in him was the belief that he would achieve 
great results without loss of life. All these theories are radically 
false. Instead of accomplishing great results with little loss of life, he 
has accomplished only defeat, at a tremendous sacrifice' of life, and of 
every other element of success. "We believe this rebellion will be put 
down by fighting, and kept down by a radical change in the feelings and 
aspirations of the ruling class of the South ; that this change is not 
to be the result of individual conversions of those who constitute the 
ruling class, but is to be a change in the class that rules — by sending the 
class that now rules to the bottom of society, and by bringing the class 
now at the bottom to the top ; by taking the sceptre from the one 
million of slaveholders, and giving it to the seven millions of " poor white 
trash " who now do their bidding — by so changing and remodeling the 
Constitution of Southern society as to make it democratic instead of 
aristocratic — republican instead of monarchical — united instead of disin- 
tegrated, liberal instead of despotic — free instead of slave — rich instead 
of poor — educated instead of ignorant — civilized instead of barbarous — 
happy instead of miserable. 

As the aspirations and feelings of the present ruling class of the South 
are for slavery, because it helps them to everything dear and valuable in 
life, as our aspirations are for freedom, because it brings to us everything 
dear and valuable in life, so will the aff"ections of this upturned common 
people of the South be for the freedom to which they will have been 
indebted for everything dear to them, and necessarily to that Union which 
binds them to free States, free press, free speech, and free schools. This 
war can have but one or the other of two results — The South must he 
free, or her slaves must he free. Slavery is the magazine of the rebellion. 
Send a single eftcctive shot into it, and that whicli now supplies it with 
all its resources will explode and be the instrument of its destruction. 



31 

Slaveiy is onr mortified limb, and its amputation is necessary. Let not 
the task be entrusted to one wbo believes that amputation is murder. His 
hand will tremble and his heart will fail him. Let it rather be entrusted 
to the representative man of those great radically Democratic ideas, of 
the superiority of those institutions in which all men are free, for 
which this war on our part is waging, and not to a devotee of the 
repudiated ideas of the sovereignty of the States, and the perpetuity of 
negro bondage, with all its inevitable tendencies, to establish despotism 
over white as well as black, for which this war, on the part of the South, 
is being waged, but which, by the very act of entering upon this war, the 
North has logically cast to the winds. Yes, let it be entrusted to that man 
to whom every constituent of the present Administration looks with a pecu- 
liar affection, which it is not given to any man in the nation to rival or 
destroy ; who has in every trial been not merely true to the idea of Free- 
dom, but a pioneer in its path ; before whom (we quote from the language 
of a Southern Unionist) " the rebels have run faster and further, during 
this war, than before any other general;" who, at the battle of Cross 
Keys, at the head of 10,000 men, defeated Stonewall Jackson, the ablest 
general of the rebels, at the head of 28,000, and drove hira out of the 
Shenandoah Yalley, and who stands to-day not the first monument in 
history of the temporary ingratitude and incomprehension of Republics, 
but with a sweet compensation in the discriminating and criticising, but 
intelligent and affectionate regard of almost the whole people of that 
North which is to be henceforth the country. "We do not suppose there 
is a man in the country who believes that Fremont, with 161,000 men, 
could have failed to capture Richmond, defended by 91,000. It is not 
eulogy, but history, to say that while Fremont has always acted with less 
means at his command than any other generals considered it possible for 
him to succeed with, he has always been successful, except in pleasing 
red-tapists and slow-coaches, and has often been brilliant in his military 
achievements, while McOlellan, with greater means at his command 
than Alexander, Cgesar, Napoleon, or Wellington, has yet to win his 
first success ; has lost more men and means in his disasters than 
they in their victories, and, to conclude our comparison, has sacri- 
ficed twice as many men as Fremont has ever commanded. Presi- 
dents and administrations may pass away ; but the principle of Free- 
dom, with which the name of Fremont is associated, will endure 
forever. He that has been crucified with it shall reign with it. 

Some have embarked into this war, and many have remained at home 
to thwart and oppose it, under the fixed determination that, whatever else 
shall come of it, it shall not free the slaves. The undoubtedly necessary, 
but tyrannical edicts of such pro-slavery men as Halleck and Butler show 
that the alternative is to enslave the masters; and it becomes us to 
consider whether it is less practicable to free four millions of black slaves 



32 

than to reduce to political slavery eight millions of white freemen — for 
we have no evidence that, until Southern institutions are homogeneous 
with our own, the Southern people will, unless compelled by military coer- 
cion, remain in union with us, and permanent military coercion is political 
slavery. From this blind, illogical, and therefore temporary influence, 
the American people are soon to emerge, and when they do, and, as a 
corollary, the military events of this war shall be viewed with sound 
judgment instead of party prejudice, it will appear that, in deep vision 
and forecast of the future — m energetic and able adaptation of means to 
emergencies — in modesty in the hour of victory over traitors in the field, 
and fortitude under defeats inflicted by "patriots with rebel sympathies" at 
home — in skillful performance of every duty to which he has been called 
— and, above all, in that pioneer forecast which makes those who have 
succeeded but followers in his path, and those who have failed opposers 
of his plans — one name stands pre-eminent — it is that of John 0. Fremont, 
and we believe that the people of the North will yet i-ise in their might 
and demand that Fremont, the most experienced and energetic officer in 
the service, and the senior in rank, be placed where he deserves to be, 
and where the interests of his country in this fearful crisis require that 
he should be — at the head of the American armies. Yet, though this, or 
aught like this, fail— though Fremont be still kept back — though he be 
required to do penance for his victories, while others are promoted for 
their disasters — yet, when the smoke and clouds of the combat shall have 
cleared away, his star shall shine forth as the morning star of regenerated 
American Freedom, and his fame shall be that of the pioneer in that 
reformed Eepublican policy which shall have given to the world a restored 
American Union. 

"For Humanity sweeps onward — where, to-day, the martyr stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands ; 
Though to-day the slake is ready, and the lurid fagot burns, 
All the world, upon the morrow, for its loved apostle mourns ; 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe returns, 
And gathers up the scattered ashes into History's cold urns." 



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